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April 21, 2026 39 mins

Fellow Ridiculous Historians, Ben, Noel and Max are back on their pirate obsession. In this special two-part series live from the legendary Baha Mar, the guys welcome returning guest Matt Frederick for a fascinating exploration of some of history's most ridiculous pirates. Stay tuned for the second part of the series later this week. No spoilers, but... there are some pirates you might not expect.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max Williams.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hello, I am here and in the room for a while.
He's sitting in a chair. We're all here together.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, they call me Ben Bullen for tax purposes, and
that's mister Noel Brown. Did you do your taxes?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
What's that done? Your taxes?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
This a legal inquiry, yes it is. So we are
all answer to me, Dan if we are going to
you live, I don't from the I did do my taxes?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Get black bags? See if I care. I was just
trying to help you out.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
All right, did you do your taxes?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Nope? All right, I did my taxes. In case we're wondering,
I did him in January. And we have a good boy.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
We have a fourth person joining us today death long
time brother in arms, also a co creator of stuff
they don't want you to know. Fellow ridiculous historians. Let's
welcome the one and only mister Matt Frederick.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Hey, everybody, Matt the Voice Frederick, Matt the Private Privateers,
saving Private Ryan's private privateers.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Of our podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Hey, hey, hey, that's a different one, as you can tell, folks.
Because we're talking about being good boys and paying our taxes.
We're leading into a an exploration that we couldn't imagine
occurring in a better environment. We are going to talk
about some of history's most ridiculous, obscure and strange pirates,

(01:58):
and we're doing it in the former home of Caribbean piracy.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
It's true, it's a little it's a little different than
it once was.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's they classed up the joy I don't know if
they used to have flamingo yoga.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
In the pirate days.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
But you know, here we are at Bahama.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
At the lovely Baja Maar. We couldn't be more thrilled.
We've been here for a couple of days. We are in, guys, honestly,
a posh studio. I'm gonna say it. It's way better
than what we're used to.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's well, you know, I mean, our individual homes typically
serve as our studios, so results may vary.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
I like my situation. I hope you all like yours
as well.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
This situation, though, however, involves a fish bowl type thing
where there are children and their families, just looking and
pointing at the at the odd men.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
And just tried to make eye contact with the dad
just ice man, Come on, dad, man.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
No, this is not how it works. I just want
in your natural environment, dude, let them observe you.

Speaker 6 (02:49):
I want to meet that dad and to break the
metaphorical fourth wall here a little bit. What's different today
than it was from yesterday when we recording stuff that
I want you to know is that's on video today
is audio hanging on?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, we have.

Speaker 6 (03:03):
Of the windows open, so there's a pathway that people
are walking down, and yesterday I just walked by like whatever.
Today they're just like.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Because today it's way easier to see.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
That's right, the more of the foot traffic on that
side of the cube.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
So you may hear us shout out people who are
walking by. A fellow visitors to Baja Mar. There are
a lot of very curious kids here. You may also
encounter a random guest because we had some folks walk
in as we're recording, likely shirtless, likely shirtless. It's a look,
it's a mood, it's a vibe. Guys. What say we

(03:45):
do it a listical style here and get into certain
stories of different pirates, often obscure that we have been
diving into over our past few days here.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
At Baja cliff Diving. Even it was a false cliff,
but I did cliff dove.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I remember we were cliff cliff.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yes, and then you go into a little cove of sorts.
What do you call that? A grotto?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Much like the Playboy mansion. Yes, a legend.

Speaker 5 (04:14):
On the other side within said grotto, you can see
into this animal sanctuary that they've got set up in there.
You can see all kinds of sharks and turtles.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Tag not an ad.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Hashtag, kind of an hashtag, kind of a kind of
an ad.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
I'm sorry, I was genuinely excited.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Because we are genuinely enthusiastic about this place. It's super
super fun. Definitely no ad required, to be honest, we're
just they put us up, and of course we're gonna
gush about the place.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
It rules.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
So, gentlemen, where should we begin? I guess we got
to talk about piracy in general. It's still a thing.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
We should start close to home and then move our
way outward back to our other home.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Perhaps that's good, Yeah, and we can maybe end with
the world's most six cessful pirates.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Oh there we go. Okay, okay, like that.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
When I say close to home, I mean close to
where we currently find ourselves at home, and then maybe
moving back towards the States.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Oh and everybody check out our episode. Did pirates have
a government from a few years back which also takes
place here?

Speaker 3 (05:16):
It sure does.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
And I don't know if we talked about this on
that episode, but I was doing a little digging. I
know we talked about the eye patch trick. It wasn't
necessarily that someone's eye had been removed by a parrot or.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
A butter little.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
It was about flipping the patch to the other side
if you needed to go down into the below decks,
and then that eye that had been blocked would be
pre acclimated to the darkness.

Speaker 5 (05:38):
Beautiful, pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And the peg legory of it all, Yes, that was
done by just some really industrious and thrifty woodworkers who
kind of figured out how to use their certain set
of skills to craft on the fly.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
What's the word prosthetics?

Speaker 5 (05:56):
Oh, I was thinking maybe you would put some kind
of divot or whole in the deck, you know, so
that you could really strap in.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, stability during waves and then just rock people. And
in a sword fight, you know, how is that guy
able to swing around so quickly?

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, and speaking of the sword fights, of it all
been the the swashbuckling, you know, a golden age of
Hollywood pirates sword fights we know as being very precision
and fencing like not how it was. It was much
more cutthroat and slash and burn chaotic.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
And also we know that pirates, some pirate crews were
actually really progressive for their time. We also know that
the line even let women hang out right right, though
in the West it was still sometimes considered bad luck.
We don't know if all the women were pirates, but
we'll get to that. We'll get to the comp we'll

(06:48):
get to some yes, we'll get to some feminism piracy.
They got workers comp there were democratic votes on the ship.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
The Bauty was all split in equal shares.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
There was like a pension plan, you know, for people
who were retiring or who were injured. But there are
also so many misconceptions about piracy in general. It's like
it's a really muddy gray line between murky Water, privateer
Murky Waters, or dark Waters. Did you guys ever see
that cartoon Dark Water.

Speaker 5 (07:16):
Saw the movie dark Water.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
The one about that was the one about the the
teflon right, Yeah, there was a there was a super
fun hang yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
There was another one. We'll get into it later. Just
hit us up on Ridiculous Historians of Facebook if you
remember that obscure card, especially if you're an old I.

Speaker 5 (07:33):
Sound familiar, man, but I like, I feel like I
can picture something in my mind of the art.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's very pirate coded,
as Noel would say, Uh, it's I don't know if
it holds up on rewatch, but it does bring us
to a question, what about.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Flight of Dragons though, yes, it does okay cool and
it is a ranking bass Yes, I love the rankings
in the back.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm surprised you haven't seen that.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
I haven't. It seems like a bit of a deeper cut.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
One guys, can we talk about New Providence Island, the
island on which we are sitting right now in the Bahamas,
the Big Island? I feel like that's kind of what
we're hinting at. The cool things in piracy at least, well,
there are a lot of interesting things, a lot of
horrific things that happened with piracy. But during the Golden Age,
like sixteen ninety seventeen twenty, that's when here in the

(08:25):
Bahamas there was a place that.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Was an intentional community.

Speaker 5 (08:30):
Well it was completely bombarded and everybody left because this
place was destroyed, and then a lot of folks came
back and rebuilt everything and used it as a really
ange HQ.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
It is like an HQ is also a bit of
a pirate utopia.

Speaker 5 (08:45):
It's very strange because you're thinking about British or Spanish
rule back in the like colonial rule back in the day,
that is one of the big problems in the world.
And you're talking about a bunch of people who are
really good at ships, making ships go and functioning on
the seas, a lot of them in the Atlantic Ocean,
especially once we're talking about here and the freedom that

(09:05):
that represents, right, and then the freedom that the Bahamas
represented at that time when they created their own place,
like as we were saying, like a freeport, not freeport,
but like.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Episode of stuff. They don't want you to know.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
Because Nasau, like now what is now Nasau was basically
what the place we're talking about, and I'm trying to
make a connection between the freedom of that that place
represented versus the colonialism, and how a lot of the
the pirateers began because they weren't getting paid right by
people who commissioned them to be on a ship to
go somewhere and do something.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
To or or absolutely conscripted them, yes right and made
them in all function slaves and we'll get to like.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
And they just decided we're not doing this anymore.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, And the colonial powers had their own pirate armies.
They just called them privateers and gave them little certain
that said what this guy does is fine.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
And I'm sorry, man, I didn't mean to interrupt. The
privateer comment was not quite on base. You're more talking
about when they were conscripted to just run supplies and victuals.

Speaker 5 (10:11):
Often often there's I think somebody you're going to be
talking about today, Noel, And that thing happened in particular
where a mutiny occurred because of the pay stopped and
they got stranded somewhere on a ship and they said, well,
I guess we're taking the ship so to jump in here.

Speaker 6 (10:25):
Like I think Ben, we were talking about this maybe
two netsco that basically on every like long Spanish voyage,
you basically read about there's a mutiny at some point.
There is always a mutiny and all these things because
they stopped paying people.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
They like, the food goes bad.

Speaker 6 (10:39):
It goes bad for some reason. God grabs a bunch
of cows. No, they're not going to talk about enough
sourcing on that basil hood if you want to check
that one out. But there's always gonna overthrown because it
really sucked, and you know, there's these liberties will be
taken away because it's easy to you know, there's the
romanticized view of pirates where it's like all these people
weren't bad, they like the Pirates of the Caribbean view.

(11:00):
Then there's like the like pirates are bad, but they're
just terrible view, But it's like, you know, they were
rebelling against the system that was really bad.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
No, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and of
course there's examples on both sides. But it's so interesting
to think about how a ship at sea really is
like its own little country, and a mutiny is really
kind of like.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Overthrowing the governments.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
But it's a lot easier to do when you as
kind of like a bunch of your closest pals and
then the guy that you want to overthrow. It's a
little more functionally achievable goal on a ship. So that's
probably why it happened so much more than like, you know,
your average coup exactly.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
And then we also know to be clear here, we're
primarily talking about piracy in the Caribbean, which is what
most Americans are going to be thinking about right when
you hear pirates, right, and a lot of that is
probably due to Johnny Depp, But we have to realize
that the colonial system, in a very real way, it
created the Caribbean piracy, right, because these folks were under

(11:58):
brutal class regimes. Uh, the punishments were incredibly harsh for
all kinds of things because the captains and the colonial
powers ruled through fear. So when we had when we
had people who say, were of darker skin tone, right,
they would never have a chance to advance in a
colonial operation at all. So why wouldn't you go somewhere else?

Speaker 2 (12:20):
And to the point of the egalitarianism of the pirate world,
those folks would have been welcomed into the right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Especially if they're treated as able bodied yeah, and if
not treated as equals treated less horribly fair enough.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
See now I'm doing the romanticization again. It's easy to do.
But at the very least you're right then they were
allowed to exist.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
They were allowed to exist. Which does it seem like
it's asking for that much? So I think we're a
low bar. We're gently becoming pro pirate because of the meritocracy.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
I want to yes, I want to make one point.
It's it's uncomfortable, it's it's unsettling, it's it's gross and sorry,
I know that I know what show them on. We
just have to point out in the in the writing,
there's there's a lot of reading that you can do
about quote wild women, which you will see. You will
see that phrase a lot when you're looking up the

(13:14):
history of pirates.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, well maybe I don't know.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
What. Just want to point this out here because it's
just it's a truth of a truth of the thing.
We're talking about the different versions of pirates that you'll
read about and the way they are depicted there. There's
horrific s a happening across the board, but just I
mean on ships when you know a port was rated

(13:42):
everywhere that was happening, and it's just very much so
in the way you know we've spoken before, but I've
spoken with you guys before about vikings and the way
they're depicted, and you know, but there's all there's that
that gray area between the truths often, but there is
horrific stuff in almost every crew that I've read about it.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, there's no happy pirate squad, you know what I mean.
There's nobody who is like raiding a ship to bring hugs.
This isn't happening. This is a great setup, Matt, for
a story we'll get to later, because we did say
we're going to get into some feminism in piracy, which
I'm really excited about. This is going to be crazy,
but you know, it's your proposition there about starting closer

(14:24):
to the US centric view. Why do you kick it
with us on the on the is there a pirate
from the Caribbean that's really captured ry?

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh, geez, put me on the spot.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Why don't you, Well, you know what, I will talk
about this guy because it actually is also very applicable
in terms of what we just discussed regarding the golden
age of piracy, and there was actually a thing that
happened where King George, the first kind of near the
end of that Golden Age that Matt was talking about
seventeen eighteen to seventeen. Seventeen seventeen to seventeen eighteen, he

(15:03):
passed something called the Acts of Grace, which essentially absolved
a lot of these pirates for their crimes in the
hopes that they would quit pirating. Yeah, but some of
them said, King George, you can take your pardon and
stick it where the sun don't shine.

Speaker 6 (15:20):
Also to jump in here, I mean, Ben, I know
you were the swell, but so much of my knowledge
of this time of period it just comes from Assassin's
creed for a black Flag. They're showing up, you know,
is it Huntingford. We're going to get into him eventually,
but yeah, he's your friend. He portrays you and you
have to kill him later.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Oh so yeah, I've never played a one of those
games where it's it.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Start later in the franchise.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
I start earlier in the fan like the Pirate One.
Don't start one?

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Should I say?

Speaker 3 (15:47):
The Pirate One?

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Though?

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Is that great.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Mechanics?

Speaker 6 (15:51):
Well, they're going to re release it this year unless
they're not going to re releaate what. Yeah, Ubisov has been
haven't official announcement, but they've been working on a re
release or remastering of four. But they're also working on
a remastering of Prince Persia, which they canceled.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Because you have thoughts like going on now Srodingers.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
That's funny though, because Ubisoft is kind of the King George,
the first of video.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Games in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Because not to get too off the track here, but
we're all huge fans of clareub Scare Expedition thirty three,
which is what one could argue as close to an
indie game studio as might be able to generate what
feels like a triple A title like clareub Scare. And
it was made up from folks who pitched that to Ubisoft,

(16:35):
and he was continuously shot down and said, no, no, no,
that's too weird, it is never gonna fly, and literally
blew them out of the water when they started their
own company Sandfall, dude.

Speaker 6 (16:46):
And by the way, I have my whole right arm
exposed facing Matt right now, who refuses to play claireub
Skire so he has to just stare at my.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
You have to play it. With the audio we're getting on, I.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
Would love it so much if it wasn't all, you know,
a generated I'm only kidding right now.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
The Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates also known as the
Act of Grace, and it was it was not an
act of Parliament, but it was a royal proclamation that
King George the First of Britain issued on September fifth
of seventeen seventeen, promising a pardon for all acts of
piracy committed before the following January the fifth, to any

(17:27):
pirates who would be so bold as to surrender themselves
to the Crown, to a proper authority before said deadline.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
And there were other, you know, caveats associated with that.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
But we're talking about a dude named Charles Vain, who
I believe that's your your reference point with the game, right.

Speaker 6 (17:45):
Uh no, but he is got you play as a
fictional pirate Edward Tenway. But Vain is one of the
guys you meet and you don't think very highly of Vain.
Vain has comes off as a real pill.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Well he was Benjamin Horney Golden.

Speaker 6 (17:56):
Yeah, he's actually a kind of your mentor, and he's
kind of like a guy who portrays you.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Jim and Horny gold Yes, matt okay, okay, just with
an I.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
That's a banger of a pirate.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
For gold, we got vain and horny gold.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
So here's a quote from Captain Charles Johnson from a
general History of the Pirates with a y because they
spelled things funny. Back then, all the pirates who were
found at this colony of rogues submitted and received certificates
of their pardon, except Captain Vaine and his crew, who,
as soon as they saw the men of War enter,

(18:32):
slipped their cable, set fire to a prize they had
in the harbor, and sailed out with their pirrishical colors flying,
firing at one of the men of war as they
went off.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Boy, King go off, they went off.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
And folks, to be clear, Vain is to your point. No,
he's one of the people who looked at this offer, offer, this,
this olive branch from somebody that he totally freaking hated,
and he played along at first, and he said, oh, yeah, yeah,
you know me. I'm a I'm a good boy, I'm
an upstanding maritime dude. And they said, oh, right there

(19:08):
they were. The King's palled in for the uh. And
then just a few months afterwards, as he said, he.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Blew up the spot.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
To maybe you know, unpack that kind of you know,
old timey quote I just read. He basically gave him
the finger, set a ship on fire, and fled with
his pirate flag flying, saying like, first of all, this
is important to note Vain was a Jacobite, okay, meaning
he was of the political ideology advocating for the restoration

(19:39):
of the senior line of the House of Stuart to
the British throne. So politically he was just absolutely opposed
to everything that the King stood for.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
It was like exactly secretarian, you know, and that kind of.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Stuff, to the point where that probably informed his decision
to give said finger and set set fire.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, right on off into the sunset.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
And his boys loved it.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Honest, his boys loved it. If I could jump in
real quick.

Speaker 6 (20:08):
I think it's also important to understand on why the
king was doing this, because getting these pirates done was nice,
but there was still in need for privateers, at least
in their mind. And like Horni Gold, like you know,
is one of these guys who would have maintained he
was a privateier, not a pirate like they were, Like,
you know, we'll probably talk about this more later. What's
the line between a privateer and a pirate really?

Speaker 2 (20:29):
So, yeah, but to your point earlier to Max, I mean,
and I think a couple of the other fellas made
this point as well. The reason they moved towards piracy
is because the privateering and or the version prior to that,
just wasn't paying the bills.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
So basically the proposition here is come bend the knee
and then.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Go back to the old way where we are now
in charge of you again. And uh political you know,
differences aside, that just didn't seem like a particularly good
deal for for.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Mister vane Yes and his boys, the horn to.

Speaker 6 (20:59):
Go got good because his whole thing was like, oh,
I will screw over all my friends I made here
in Nasut. Yeah, yeah, he's a real part.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
But this they say, no honor among thieves, I think
that's a me snomer.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
Well, this is.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
It depends on the type of thievery. But this is
the kind of thing with privateers. We have to remember.
It's a really crappy commission gig because they're saying you
can do what you want as long as you do
it to this group, like as long as you attack
the Spanish or you know, as long as you attack
the British, you're fine and you can kind of take
what you want from there. But we're not like giving

(21:30):
you health insurance. We're not giving you workmen's comprehension. It's
a contract gig, and we can end it at any time.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
It's a good example of like seizing the means of
production kind of stuff, where it's like I don't need
you and your your grace proclamation. I don't need the
pittance that you're gonna throw me for the work that
I can go out and grab and do myself. Granted,
there is something to be said and an argument to
be made of having regular gigs and not having to

(21:57):
like always hustle and find the next you.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Know, shout out to everybody to not go shout out
to our fellows.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
We're gonna say it sounds like a gig economy, isn't
Isn't that the way to go? Like we've advanced so
far since then, and we've decided the gig economy is
the thing that works the best for.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Everything that's right this calculation, This is a rig economy.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
I'm doing ship jokes.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
Got it, and it works on so many levels.

Speaker 6 (22:24):
Nice work, Bet, I interjected the bad joke drum here annually.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Thank you, thank you, you are the bad joke drum
of my heart. Max.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
So not a lot is known about Charles Vane's early
life other than the fact that he was a sailor.
He is from Port Royal, probably wasn't born there.

Speaker 5 (22:42):
Forgive me is port Royal, Jamaica.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
I believe it's in uh, yeah, I think it is.
That's correct. And he is thought to have been born
around sixteen ninety, probably in England, but he operated in
Port Royal and again likely wasn't born there. He was,
as I'd said, a big spokesperson for the Jacobite cause
he served as a privateer under Henry Jennings and in

(23:06):
seventeen sixteen this position helped him to knock over a
Spanish galleon that had sunk off the coast of Florida
in a storm and collect all of the sunken literal
sunken treasure you know therein That's when he really started
hanging out right here around Nasau and then where we

(23:28):
now sit, had a super super posh lifestyle and became
an incredibly successful pirate, capturing merchant vessels from places as
far flung as Hispanola to New York and just shout
out to Wayne Savage and his website the Golden Age

(23:49):
of Piracy, getting some really good information from that. So
let's go really quickly into the deal with the pardon,
and I'm just going to read really quickly from Wayne's writing,
because I think he does a great job somemming this up.
It really came into his own as a pirate when
the news of the King's pardon reached Nassau. Being one
of those who refuse clemency, he was disgusted when more
than half of the pirates, including his mentor Jennings, accepted it.

(24:13):
This is like a bad look as far as he
was concerned. This was people like you know, denying their
their pirate pirate ways and bending the knee again to
the people they were rebelling against in the first place.
Many others who rejected it were doing so on political,
politically motivated grounds because they were also Jacobites. So he then,

(24:37):
after doing the thing you know that I described in
that quote, reached out to a lot of other Jacobites
and a lot of people who supported his cause and
started to amass more crew members for his operation on
February seventeen eighteen in rather the HMS Phoenix, which was
a British ship captained by a guy named Vincent. Pierce

(24:59):
got to Nasau and he was kind of welcomed by.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
The the local folks.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
And that is when Pierce, he was kind of like
the the Jean Valjean and Javert kind of situation. He's
the Javert to Vain's Jean Valjean started to uh aggressively
pursue capture of this you know, escaped pirate who was
flouting the very generous clemency offered by the king.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh we also have to point out too, I'm loving
this story. Vain was even among other pirates, infamous for
his cruelty. Really yeah, yeah, he was a hard gum.
Yeah he was not like we're we just want to
make sure you don't think we're painting him in too
heroic a light.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
No, I'm not trying to. It's mainly just interesting the dynamics.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Of the whole dynamics politics and because it's not financial
for him, it's first it is personal.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
That's and then sometimes that's what makes the most dangerous characters.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Because you can rationalize whatever you're doing.

Speaker 5 (26:06):
Do you have one example of that, just so I understand,
Like what we're talking about is cruelty. Yeah, and I
don't want to go They were darker.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Not just They wouldn't just beat, uh, they wouldn't just
beat other sailors when they were raiding ships. They would
capture them and sometimes not even try to ransom them.
They would just torture them for long periods of time,
and then they would also, uh, I think this is
the right guy. They would go really hard on one
dude to make him an example to the other sailors

(26:36):
so that they would willingly give up all their values valuables,
and then they would also beat those guys. Geez.

Speaker 5 (26:43):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
So it's like somebody is gonna try to mug you
with a baseball bat, give your wallet and you do,
and they say, okay, now I'm gonna beat Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:53):
They got your stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
Now it's real, real gangster. Yeah, Dan is a good
of the.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
Seas as a palate cleanser. Between that and the next
pirate we talked about, I want to clarify something from
my own mind. I think you guys might know better
than I. The ships that many pirates would use were
often smaller, right than the schooners or okay, so they're there,

(27:19):
they don't, they don't. Just for me the complete layman here,
not like the huge bricates exactly, or a galleon or
one of these huge ships that maybe the Spanish Armado
would have or another you know, British force.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Always there were some chonky boys, but most of them
to jump in more sloops and schooners.

Speaker 6 (27:36):
The big steption would be like Edward teaches Queen Anne's Pravans,
which was.

Speaker 5 (27:40):
A man of war.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Oh wow, that's like the huge that's bigger than a freak.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
But yeah, this is obviously black Beard, but that was
like his prize was capturing that. But yeah, most people
had small agile chef.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, because they could out maneuver the bigger guys, and
they were also easier to steal.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
It's like those gangs of a dirt bike in eight
TV riders that we see around Atlantic Chase. They there's
no way they can ever because the zip off through
a neighborhood.

Speaker 5 (28:08):
Well, and the point I wanted to get to with
all of that was that's one of the reasons Nasau
was so important and such a good place to go,
because those smaller ships can get into this area much
more safely and come in closer to land.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Well, and dude, the wind man, think about that. If
you were a smaller ship, you can harness that wind,
if you're a skilled sailor and zip and go super suent.
It's crazy windy around here.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
There's another there's another point there that has always fascinated
me historically. You guys, when we talk about sea serpents.
This is a tangent, but we talked about sea serpents
or sea monsters, sea creatures of the deep. You know,
you see all those woodcuts of them swallowing up a
ship entire. We have to remember is that's not necessarily
as implausible as it sounds for really big octopus or

(28:57):
a squid to attack a ship like that.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
David Joe Jazz, because.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
In reality they are so much smaller than they're portrayed
in fiction. Right, if you go on an accurate reproduction
of one of those ships, you're going to think, oh,
it's not the size of the sea monster, it's the
size of the ship.

Speaker 5 (29:15):
The interesting that's what.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, that's what makes a difference. The ocean's great fascinating
facts because.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
The tactics of a pirrating ship is to come along,
to find its way alongside, sneak up basically to a
larger ship, and get part of the crew on board,
right because we're.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Not talking smaller boats under cover of night.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Because we're not talking about naval combat off way. But
if you play like Black.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Flag, you got broadside people.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
It's well it's the broadsiding, but it's all about upgrading
your cannons and all these other things. And I wonder
how much of that actually played into the form of
pirrating that truly existed, maybe.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
At the state level role, so you would have something
that's essentially like a BattleMech. You know the size of
your flags, right, Yeah, those guys have all these tremendous
capabilities if you stay still long enough for them to
get to you. Right. So if you if you see
them turning and facing the can instward, you you might

(30:17):
have to wait for a while, right to get your
ass kicked.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Absolutely to jump in with more Black Flag.

Speaker 6 (30:22):
There are at the end of Black Flag for like
boss level ship fight, and if you try just fight
them as traditional, you're gonna get your ass kicked every
time because there's so much more powerful that you can
make your own ship. But so yeah, being nimble and
fast and a lot of those fights nestics are usually
against really large ships at bend point, they take forever
to turn.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
Yes, but once they fire, you're dead. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, It's kind of like getting in a fight with
a sumo wrestler, you know what I mean, Like, just
don't let them get to you.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
No, you gotta sweep the leg.

Speaker 6 (30:51):
And to know previous part about Charles Vaine, when they
got them all on Nassau, they had them blockaded into
Nassau with all those massive ships. It's like, yeah, those
fast little ships can't really do much in that case.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
It's a wildfire, right, as long as those big ships
are able to stay supplied.

Speaker 5 (31:08):
But blockade. I swear I heard that about history here, Matt.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Let's get it straight. Hey, uh riddles, this what happens?

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Well, I will get to that in two point five seconds.
I just want to add I just there was a
detail that I left out. When Vain decided to flee
the coup after being offered that pardon, What essentially happened
was an envoy came to Nasau, you know, bearing the
papers that would represent you know that pardon make it official.
And not only did Vane you know, reject it and

(31:45):
set a ship on fire.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
This guy's name was Rogers. He sailed the flaming ship
directly at rogers fleet.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
And created a diversion that he then used to peace
on out.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Wow, black flag, I know.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
That was Woods Rogers And the thing is the templar. Yeah,
the game, the game, definitely in the game in real life.
Who knows, but I nol I believe that that crazy
move to turn a ship into a fire ship. It
it didn't destroy this other guy's ships, right, It didn't

(32:22):
destroy Rogers's fleet, but it gave him the opportunity.

Speaker 5 (32:25):
Yeah, just a.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Distraction, total, very very expert god teared diversion just to
get out of there.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Okay, all right, what happens next.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Well, a lot of things happen.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
He pirates around, you know, for for for a while,
he massed quite a bit of wealth, of course, and
then eventually, as as is typically the case with folks
flouting the law so openly like that, it eventually catches
up with them, and it caught up with him in
pretty epic fashion in the form of an absolutely cut

(32:56):
scene worthy twist where he essentially is run from the authorities.
He shipwrecks on an island, he has to. He gets
rescued from the island and then like gets aboard another
vessel where he takes on a false identity for a
while and get in get in situations.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
And he sure did so.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
In February of seventeen nineteen, he got caught in a
hurricane the Bay Islands, got shipwrecked on a literal uncharted
and basically I mean, for all intents and purposes of
what we know, uninhabited island. The rest of the crew
died during this shipwreck. He was only able to survive
because of some kindly turtle hunters who didn't necessarily live there,

(33:38):
but this is an island they knew about, and he
was able to bart her for supplies or just you know,
appeal to the kindness of strangers. Eventually, what I was
kind of describing a minute ago, a merchant ship arrived
and it was piloted by an ex pirate named Holford.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
He didn't trust Vane, so he did not offer him
a lift. In fact, he told him that he was
going to leave him there and that if he was
still there when he came back in a month's time,
he would he would give him a ride, but not
to freedom to the gallows.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Okay, So he's like, I'll give you a pass because
we both were in the game, but if I see
you again, you're gonna face justice.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Correct. Another English ship eventually arrived in order to get
fresh water. That's when Vain attempted to blend in with
the crew using a fake name and a bit of
a disguise.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
It's me Nigel, nonpirate.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
He Eventually Colford catches up with that crew, who is
an associate of the captain of this new merchant vessel
that Vain is now basically stowing away on for a
intensive purposes, and he then turns him in narks him out.
He gets tried and hanged in March of seventeen twenty
one at Gallows Point. Full circle back there in Port Royal,

(34:51):
his lifeless corpse was hung in chains on the small
island off of a gun k near the port near
the co and this really represented kind of making an
example of him, and many people looked at it as
a very important visual cue signaling the end.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Of the golden the golden age of piracy.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, and uh, you know that's how you play the game.
I guess, uh it's it's a larger than life tail.
I think we've been pretty honest about the uh the
darker parts of it. But uh no, after after all this,
what do you think, man, You're gonna do some piracy
with me?

Speaker 3 (35:30):
I'm gonna go to the water park.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Okay, if that's euphemism for piracy, I know.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
They may have a pirate themed ride and I'm gladly
enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
And so, folks, we can't thank you again enough for
tuning in enjoining us in an auditory way here at Bahamar.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
We're doing an intentional two parter. We all brought some
really fun stories. That one ended up being a little
beefier than we expected. So when we come back with
part two, I think we might have two more for you.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
And of course, big big thanks to mister Max Free
Train Williams. Huge thanks to ours returning special guest Matt Frederick. Matt,
what's on your mind? Man?

Speaker 5 (36:08):
Who is that creeping in our phones? It's Max and
he's got the knowledge, Max, Max Mac.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Just for you, here it come.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
It's back the.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Matt. My favorite part of that song Thank You Again
is the SI at the end, just because it's like
it seems like a release of something almost sexual.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
He's dreaming. Yes, I think we have nine versions of
That's great. I never asked for one.

Speaker 6 (36:40):
They asked Matt to record one line for me.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
And Matt and Dylan Man going above and beyond. Shout
out to Dylan the Tennessee palp Vegans who's always.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
Rocking the rude bekas over on stuff they don't want
you to know.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
If you don't know what I'm talking about, do get
you to a podcast platform of choice and check out
our weekly listener mail episodes where you get a new
root to beg a jingle to me about every yepp.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
And if you're behind on the root of Begas, I
think the plan very soon is to make an oops
All Roota Bega is at least special.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
And in the meantime you could also check out our
parent company, IGU. If you love this trippy stuff. We
have a whoops All Illumination Global Unlimited episode. I'm miss
making those, you guys, we should We should get back
to those before IGU puts out a puts out a
call to end our podcast piracy. What do we think?

Speaker 5 (37:29):
Yes, yeah, always, always more.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
And always more reminds us the rest of the Thank yous.
Big shout out to Max's biological brother Alex Williams, our
brother in podcast arms, who composed this bang and bop.
Big reluctant shout out to a guy who totally would
have worked for the British colonial powers, our own East
India Company, villain rogue and impressionist at the Renaissance Fair,

(37:58):
Jonathan Strict.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
To do a bit of a paper things aka the
Admiral was Roger's sort.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah yeah, oh good callback and big thanks to the eavest Jeffcoat.
Big thanks to Christopher hasiotis well snol.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
Can I shout out the kind of haggard looking dove.
There's like some really n.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
And the sanctuary.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
No no, no, no, no no, you can't rain those birds in, dude.

Speaker 5 (38:24):
If you go in the sanctuary, they will give you
a tiny little stick that has some bird seed on it,
and the little birds will land on the stick and
hang out with you for a while, and it's glorious.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
And speaking of glorious, we're going to return to uh,
the glory days of piracy in a way that's not
often reported in Western history books, So tune in later
this week. In the meantime, we got to go catch
some sun and some turtles.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
We'll see you next time, folks.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the eye
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your favorite shows.

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